I just finished a conversation with a client who wanted to send me money. Sadly, they expect me to perform a written act of marketing before sending a check, and they wanted a project estimate.

Long ago, I made a rule to never give off-the-cuff estimates on complex projects.

Perhaps I do it badly (perhaps everyone does), but I grew tired of burning myself — typically the result of forgetting a time-intensive aspect of a project.

So I did what I always do; fired up my project checklist/estimate spreadsheet, and started moving through the list.

Money, after all, matters, which leads me to wonder; could the spreadsheet be the successful freelance writer’s most important piece of software?

Words Matter, But So Do Numbers.

Writers have long fought wars (with a religious zeal) over word processors, and for good reason.

When you sit down at the keyboard and open up that vein, the interface between you and your now-manifesting neurosis should be a smooth one.

Still, in all the glitz, angst and fervor heaped by writers on word processors, I think writers don’t give the humble, non-flashy spreadsheet its due.

I use OpenOffice — the Open Source (free) equivalent to Microsoft’s Office suite. While I never use the included spreadsheet software at anywhere near its full potential, I use it often:

Invoices

Estimates

Job tracking

Job planning/project schedules

Checklists

Analysis

On complex jobs, I often put together a spreadsheet-based timeline accompanied by a checklist.

Estimating projects on a spreadsheet allows you to run a bazillion different pricing scenarios.

Where spreadsheets really shine is in analysis — both project/response data and when conducting “what if” scenarios.

Do higher offers really result in better response rates (not always, and without a spreadsheet, how do you know what the optimal offer is)? What can we spend on trade show promotion? What’s the lifetime value of our average customer?

In fact, learn to use pivot tables, and I guarantee that no question will ever go unanswered again*.

Years ago, my most-reliable, client-butt-saving direct mail tool was the breakeven spreadsheet, where — rather than try to predict a response rate — I figured out what response was needed for a program to break even.

If that rate was too high, the program was in trouble before it started — and the client received a warning before it was too late. They weren’t always happy, but they weren’t poorer either.

A spreadsheet also taught me the value of incremental improvements when dealing with large mailing lists, and once saved me from making a very, very bad royalty deal (I was assuming most of the risk and getting little of the reward).

When I was writing and submitting articles to trade magazines for a client, I used (you guessed it) a spreadsheet to track submissions. It even reminded me when it was time to follow up.

How could I not like something that’s meant so much to my business?

Easy to Use. And Easy to Get.

Microsoft Excel sits atop the heap of spreadsheets, though if you don’t own MS Office, don’t despair; OpenOffice offers a spreadsheet that’s largely compatible with Excel, and you can download it (for Linux, Mac & Windows) free.

There are other choices available, but if you must look beyond powerful & expensive (Excel) and power & free (OpenOffice), feel free to do so.

For example, Google Docs and Zoho both offer an online spreadsheet, though I’m not overkeen on the sometimes sluggish response.

Whatever tool you chose, you might struggle with a piece of software that’s a bit more linear than most writers are used to.

Given the flood of data washing over most marketers, a spreadsheet is a powerful tool against (what I call) data blindness; the inability to see the forest for all the burning trees.

Give a spreadsheet a little time – and download a few of the bazillion templates available on the Internet – and you’ll have a lifelong friend (and revenue-enhancing business partner).

[Update: Amusingly, Twitter’s been very unhappy since I posted this, and suggesting it’s in the midst of a meltdown wouldn’t be out of line…]

You can’t help but hear the drumbeats about Twitter. Depending on who’s talking, it’s either a colossal waste of time, or humanity’s last, greatest hope.

I’ve used Twitter for months now as a simple micro-blogging sidebar on my Trout Underground fly fishing blog. In that relatively undemanding capacity (and helped along by Alex King’s excellent Twitter Tools), it worked fine, though hardly perfectly.

Recently I tumbled for a personal Twitter account to see about all the fuss.

Well, I tried to see.

Seems like the service is down a lot. In fact, as I write this — having just shipped a messaging platform advocating a radical repositioning of a client’s product (something I was willing to crow about) — I can’t log on.

Can’t tweet. Can’t do anything. (I wrote this yesterday. Today — right now — we seem to be experiencing another temporary outage).

While not everything about Twitter is trivial, it’s clear that most tweets aren’t exactly life-changing, which is precisely why the service needs to work flawlessly.

I invite you to follow along, and I promise not to clog the pipelines with “shorts or sweatpants?” subject matter.

After all, I initially “followed” a lot of people in an attempt to quickly gain perspective. And the noise level was… high. Too high.

I find Twitter an interesting idea. Perhaps once I’m following the right people, the light bulb will come on. And regardless of of whether it sticks, you have to do these things to speak about them with your clients.

Still, Twitter feels more like a proof of concept — a proving ground for something better that has yet to evolve.

Prior to my family emergency, I promised you the results of my recent new client pitch — the culmination of several posts about picking and pitching the clients you want to work for (instead of letting clients pick you).

Lumpy mailers have gotten a bad rap; some feel they’re misleading (a sheet of bubble wrap in credit card mailers is generating bad press), but in this case, we’re delivering something of value (even if it’s just fun), and I’ve never once heard a complaint.

In the age of badly written email and hair-trigger attention spans, a lumpy mailer is pure power.

This time I sent two high-value prospects a pair of chattering teeth (yes, it’s a communications theme, and yes — I have a box of the things sitting on a shelf).

Attached to the teeth was a card laying out the benefits of my proposed program.

One prospect immediately called for a meeting, and last Friday, we met.

I pitched an engagement/membership program, and at first, the client was skeptical. Then she grew very interested.

Frankly, you have to be prepared for this; unlike the clients who seek you out — presumably after identifying a need for your services — prospecting on your own means pitching people who don’t necessarily think they need your help.

In short, the prospect requires a little education, and you don’t have much time to do the educating.

In this case, the client liked what she heard. At the risk of bragging, I wasn’t that surprised. Copywriters often fear they have little to offer (it’s the most common fear among newer copywriters).

They’re typically wrong about that, but in my case, I’m very comfortable pitching engagement marketing to marketing professionals. This client responded to that pitch.

How do I know?

For starters, our one-hour meeting ran 2.5 hours, and the walk back to the office (from the cafe) was repeatedly interrupted by stops (she wanted to go over more possibilities).

I didn’t walk away with a signed work order, but I’m now the proud owner of a prospect deeply interested in the kind of project I want to write — one who asked me for a detailed proposal.

How about you; have you picked a small handful of clients you want to work for and then pitched them?

If not, why not?

Let me help; take 60 seconds to sit down and hand-write a list of the four companies/organizations/causes you’d kill to work for.

In a former life, I worked at a high-tech ad agency, and sat through a pitch from a freelance writer. He advertised himself as the area’s “foremost copywriter,” but over the course of the pitch, revealed himself as something less lofty.

He talked endlessly about himself. And never once asked how he might help us.

When you write copy, you do so with this question in mind: “What’s in this for the reader?”

The same is true of a pitch. What’s in it for the harried, sleep-deprived marketing director sitting across the table?

People are busy. And even those who aren’t busy have better things to do than sit in conference rooms while you convince them you’re the second coming.

The area’s “foremost” copywriter ignored that rule, and walked out without a prayer of getting an assignment.

When Gushing Might Be Good

If you absolutely must gush, gush about the benefits to the pitchee.

You know. The growth in revenue. The truckloads of leads. The increase in loyalty. Regrowth of their hair. Whatever you’ve got.

Don’t be afraid to be specific, and then back those specifics with real data (if you’ve got it).

For example, this prospect is a non-profit, so I researched non-profits running similar membership programs. I emailed two of them asking for help, and now I’ve got a handful of warm, fuzzy statistics plugged into my pitch.

With a solid foundation of benefits in place, I move on to the next step.

The Pitch Outline

Ok, so you’ve opened with a few strong benefits (like “I can help Conglomco triple its membership retention rates”). The next step is to connect the benefits to your proposal.

People get hung up on details, and the last thing you want is for your carefully built pitch to sink beneath the waves because the prospect hates the purple in your sample layout, or thinks the blog you’re pitching should run on TypePad instead of WordPress.

Make it deft, keep it light, and (once again), connect the benefits to the project itself.

In other words, don’t just toss out a few benefits, outline a project, and call it a day. The prospect needs to see how the project produces the benefits. It’s your job to weave the two together.

I do this mainly via spoken word, though I’m not above putting together an outline to keep me on track.

Do I prepare visuals for the prospect? Yes. Sometimes a flow chart, outline, org chart or informational graphic are necessary.

I don’t like prospects reading proposals while I’m pitching them, so I tend to keep it simple. And I haven’t yet fired up an animated presentation with a soundtrack.

That makes me a passive part of the process, and computer-run presentations don’t respond to your prospect’s questions or body language.

And while you’re prepping, don’t forget to formulate answers to potential objections (time, money, impact on an overworked staff, etc). You can’t predict what might get thrown at you, but it’s worth five minutes of your time trying.

What’s Your Leave Behind?

The pitch is finished. The prospect’s eyes are bright and shiny. They’re licking their lips over the program. They want it. Bad.

Yet they can’t make the final decision. But their boss can. Can you really rely on them to repeat your pitch from memory?

My preference is to leave behind a single sheet of paper summarizing your pitch. What should it contain?

The benefits (duh)

A very brief outline of the project

A compelling argument why you’re the perfect person for the gig

The call to action (everyone forgets this)

This isn’t rocket science; keep it clean, simple, and smart. Bullet it where needed, and don’t forget a call to action — the prospect needs to know what you want from them.

When you leave, don’t forget to push for a resolution — or at the very least, let them know you’ll call them in a few days.

Full disclosure: lots of people do this differently (more visuals, animated presentations, etc). It works for them, this works for me, and I’m not suggesting there’s One Way to do this.

Being Girl, sponsored by P&G brands Tampax and Always, is a microsite and social community dedicated to young women’s questions about PMS, dating, and other issues. Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff has reported that Being Girl is four times more effective than a similarly priced TV advertising program.

Phrases like "4 times more effective" make marketing directors sit up a little straighter — especially when you’re referring to a project run by a huge packaged goods company.

Need more ammunition?

Keynote tracked respondents’ behavior on three separate automotive microsites. Its research showed the more time visitors spent on a microsite the more likely they were to make a purchase. Even if the prospect initially was thought to be a poor candidate for buying anything, that probability soared after just a few minutes on the site.

There are a couple of important points to note here. First, relevant and valuable online information significantly affects a purchase. Second, a prospect who isn’t necessarily ready to buy can be positively influenced by Web content.

To many writers, "content marketing" means cheaply produced articles, written by the dozen, and yet it doesn’t have to be that way.

Proctor & Gamble — and many others (including niche companies like Pyramyd Air — have demonstrated the excellent returns delivered by high quality content.

Say you wanted Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream, but the ice cream folks kept handing a single scoop of Mango Fruity Bubblegum across the counter.

You’d leave and go where you got to pick the flavor, right?

So why do so many copywriters passively let the universe pick their clients for them — when they should be actively picking their own?

The Part Where I Take My Own Advice

I’ve long told my readers to pick their own clients — that waiting for clients to pick you renders your copywriting career about half as gratifying as it could be.

And no, I’m not talking about the basic marketing activities everyone does.

Instead, I’m talking about targeted pitches, where you pick the clients, projects (or causes) that interest you, and then pitch them. In a rare example of me taking my own advice, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Once again, I’m firing up my favorite foot-in-the-door tactic; the lumpy mailer. I covered it in some detail in this post, but in simplest terms, I’m defining a short list of high-value prospects, and sending something fun and three dimensional (in this case, a toy).

It’s Fun. It’s Affordable. And It Works.

The lumpy mailer is designed to stand apart in a pile of mail (it’s a parcel, after all), and once opened, it delivers a fun, short, powerful message (via a drop card attached to the toy).

In this case, I sent two clients wind up chattering teeth (communications being the common thread), and customized the message for each client.

The goal here isn’t instant success. It’s to open the prospect’s door to a pitch, softening them up so my phone call isn’t a cold call.

And yes, it almost always works.

That’s not to say I always close the deal; the prospect may have little interest in what I’m offering. But the lumpy mailer demonstrates interest, creativity and yes — that I’m fun to work with.

It’s Working

The score so far? Excellent. My highest priority target received the mailer last Thursday, and sent a very promising email over the weekend (I’d planned to call this week, but now don’t have to). We meet in two weeks.

I called the recipient of the other mailer, who immediately recognized me (Oh yeah, you’re the chattering teeth marketing guy.")

While their budget doesn’t include the project I pitched, I was asked to get back in touch in two months, when the new budget would be drawn up.

Sure, the dance has just begun, but at least I’m out on the dance floor. And yes, I’ll share my upcoming lumpy mailer results with you (including the results of my engagement marketing project pitch in two weeks).

The moral? Pick your client and projects instead of letting them pick you. Years from now, you may not be any richer, but you will be a lot happier.

Writing funny copy is a skill — an apparently rare one if my eyes don’t deceive me. Still, if you hire one of the funniest people on the planet, then you’re probably gold. Witness the NXTube.com “spoof” blog which engages with readers via humor — and sells golf balls the backwards way.

There’s a lot of really, really bad copy floating around out there. More than ever before. And yet — every once in a while — you stumble across a piece that… well… transcends the genre.

It defies description. I found this on a company Web site — one with an impressive client list. It’s just that I can’t figure out what they do, or how they do it. It’s simultaneously hilarious and horrifying:

Dynamic, adaptive strategy that guides creative, thoughtful decision making in the changing world of the 21st Century is achievable. But it requires a new, non-traditional and creative planning process.

Providing creative experiences that bring in new insights, move strategic thinking into areas of Deep Innovation and shape industry/field-changing new models.

Strategically applying high-opportunity “Emergent” strategy development to accelerate and magnify the value of “Deliberate” long range strategic planning.

Applying the ***** proprietary Visual Strategic Thinking and Mapping System that enables planning teams to extend their repertoire of strategic thinking options, open up breakthrough ideas, and then channel their ideas into a coherent and effective communication of the strategic story.

Nurturing broad based support for the strategy through a co-creative process that gains understanding and commitment throughout the organization.

I’m dubbing it “stream of consciousness meets passive voice.” And yes, you (and your brand new headache) may now return to your everyday life.